Solo Motorcycle Hammock Camping / Rihards Grunte / S1E2

That’s it! I can’t sit at home any longer. It’s the fourth day of my two-week vacation and I still haven’t decided where I’m gonna go with my motorcycle. How pathetic. I remember a time when I didn’t give a damn where I’m going as long as I’m in motion towards new and unexplored places. But lately, I’ve been spending countless hours panning and zooming on Google maps, saving locations I’d like to visit, and looking through Google Street View at what I’m going to see there and what roads lead there.

There are two sides to this. On one hand, you prepare for the trip and scout the locations and routes leading there, so you know what to expect and have backup plans set but you take out all the joy from exploration and finding the unexpected. Yes, it’s a thrill but on the other hand, this might lead to hard enduro-style riding, sweating like a pig, getting exhausted, and not enjoying yourself in a shitty camping spot.

So I decided that I’m just gonna go to a place not far from Lamiņi, the town where I live. I’ve hiked in the area before and I know the trail and how complex it is to traverse on a motorcycle with full luggage on the racks. Once you fight your way through the bush and mud you end up on a hill within a tree line from where a beautiful view spans across a forest valley.

It’s a beautiful place to watch the sunset and it was already noon, so I decided I was going to go there and simply relax and since the mushroom season has begun I might as well try and find some chanterelles from which I want to create a gravy for fried potatoes. A simple Latvian-style dinner.

I quickly packed my Enduristan waterproof pannier bags without much worry about the rain that was forecasted because I was certain that all my belonging would stay dry inside these bags. The only thing that I was missing was groceries, so I headed for the nearest town called Zentene.

While setting up my camera to capture a scene in the town I was approached by a local teenager who was riding a moped. We chatted for a short time, I explained what I was doing and what OUTDURO is, and then I asked him if there’s anything else interesting in the small town except the Zentene Palace.

He told me about a place nearby the Palace which was hidden deeper in the woods. He told me that the local stories say that this was a dungeon where people were tortured. The place was called the devil’s mouth because one side of the dungeon was collapsed and it looked like a big mouth. What a grim but interesting story.

So I got my unexpected thrill and found a new place. Unfortunately, I didn’t capture this scene with my digital camera, only with the action camera but the quality isn’t as good, so I decided to exclude it from this video but I talked about this in my Instagram story, so If you’re still not following me then make sure you do to not miss out on these small stories that I capture with my smartphone.

I rode to my camping spot and along the way just before the camping spot I spotted chanterelles, growing right next to the trail! What luck!

The next thrill was to sleep alone in the forest inside my hammock under a tarp and experience a lightning storm, with heavy rain and wind. Which was the total opposite of what the evening was like. I saw the sunset, the clouds cleared and I gazed upon the stars for a while which were shining ever so bright!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my first full episode of my “Motorcycle Camping with Rihards” series. I have two other episodes filmed and I plan on going on few more weekend trips to camp in other interesting places before the winter and super cold nasty weather sets in.

So if you enjoyed this episode, please leave feedback and suggestions on where I can improve. I’m only starting out so your feedback is valuable to me.

Cheers!

Chapters

0:00 Enduro riding
3:30 Setting up Hammock
5:30 Scouting with drone
6:50 Mushroom picking
09:10 Making dinner
18:35 Preparing to sleep
20:58 Cold morning
25:05 Time to move out

Gear used:

Sony Alpha 6600
Tamron 28-200mm lense
K&N Filter
RODE VideoMicro Compact
Motorcycle: BMW G650 xChallenge